Travelling Hopefully - Minor Disaster Edition

Inverness Airport is of modest dimensions but possesses all the charm you might expect from a large concrete building whose occupants have the avowed intention of leaving as soon as possible. British Airways stuffed me into a narrow metal tube and aimed me at Heathrow. For context I was heading to the Faroes and I was now further away than ever. Eager to compensate for this a mere six or seven hours later they stuffed me into another narrow metal tube and aimed me at Copenhagen. Once there it was a mere two hours before I was stuffed into a third narrow tube and this time I was assured that the destination was the Faroes.

I was placed in a seat next to an emergency exit and the stewardess informed me of my stern responsibilities should the plane suddenly fail to do the one thing we expect of it. Drunk with power I surveyed the passengers mentally deciding who would live and who would die. We were told not to open the exit if the plane went down in water which given our destination made the whole thing pointless. I had been awake for about thirty hours by this stage so it’s probably a good thing my emergency skills weren’t called upon.

My spirits rose as the plane thumped down to a technically safe landing in the Faroes. I was finally here. My newly elevated spirits plummeted when it became obvious that the airline had lost my luggage. They plummeted even further when I stepped outside and found my taxi driver must have got sick of waiting and had abandoned me in the icy drizzle. Fortunately another taxi driver who was picking up a load of luggage took pity on me and squeezed me in among the suitcases and drove me to my hotel.

My hotel has what is called “self check in” which basically involves receiving instructions from a disembodied voice at the other end of a telephone on how to access my room. This was the first part of my visit to the Faroes that went without a hitch. Leaving the abandoned reception I rattled up to my floor in a lift that belonged in a museum. The lift added to the entire “you’ve wandered into a Scandinavian horror movie” vibe but I was so tired I didn’t care. I crawled into the narrow bed and decided the psychopathic killers could do what they want.